At least three people have been killed and many wounded in a blast inside Kabul’s main military hospital, the Afghan Defence Ministry said today.

A veteran Afghan officer shot dead eight Nato troops and a civilian before being killed himself after an argument at Kabul airport today.

A rogue Afghan army officer shot dead six Nato soldiers before being killed himself today.

The Taliban took aim at Afghanistan’s intelligence services today, killing four people and injuring more than 30 in two separate attacks, including a suicide bombing on a bus in the capital, officials said.

Nato forces said they foiled a terrorist attack on a conference due to be held in Kabul to be attended by leaders from more than 60 countries.

A Nato air strike mistakenly killed five of its Afghan army allies while they were on patrol in the country’s east, officials said today.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has called President Hamid Karzai to express her condolences following the accidental killing of several Afghan soldiers by the German military.

An Afghan Defence Ministry official said at least 10 people were killed in bombing attacks in the capital Kabul.

The Afghan government took official control of the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah today as Nato troops worked to root out final pockets of militants.

Nearly 3,000 American soldiers who arrived in Afghanistan to secure two violent provinces have begun operations and are already seeing combat.

At least nine Afghan soldiers were killed by US planes in a “friendly fire” incident today.

Taliban militants stopped a bus travelling on Afghanistan’s main road through a wild and dangerous part of the country’s south, seized about 50 people on board and slaughtered around 30 of them, officials said today.

US-led troops attacked a compound where Taliban leaders were meeting in western Afghanistan, killing 30 militants, American and Afghan military officials said today.

Afghan military officials say an operation has been launched to root out any Taliban who have reportedly infiltrated villages outside of southern Afghanistan’s largest city.

US, Afghan and Pakistani officers opened the first of six joint military intelligence centres along the Afghan-Pakistan border, an effort to cut down on militants’ movement in a region of rising terrorist activity.

Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry denied an assertion by the top US intelligence official that only 30% of the country is under the control of President Hamid Karzai’s government.

Gordon Brown today promised new aid to rebuild the shattered economy of Afghanistan as British and Afghan troops seized a key strategic town from the Taliban.

A Nato and Afghan operation to retake a Taliban-controlled town in southern Afghanistan has killed at least 12 Taliban fighters and two children, the Afghan Defence Ministry said today.

Insurgents ambushed a US-led coalition and Afghan patrol in the volatile south, sparking a battle and airstrikes that killed 25 suspected Taliban.

Suspected Taliban militants ambushed a Nato convoy in southern Afghanistan today, and a gunshot victim said soldiers fleeing the scene shot him and killed a man in a bakery.

A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-filled car into a two-vehicle convoy carrying foreigners south of the Afghan capital today, a police official said.

US artillery and airstrikes killed between 50 and 60 suspected Taliban militants today, the fourth day of a Nato-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, a Nato spokesman said.

Nato and Afghan forces used artillery and air strikes overnight to keep up pressure on an estimated 700 Taliban trapped by an offensive that the alliance claims has killed at least 200 militants in southern Afghanistan, Nato said today.

Warplanes dropped bombs on suspected Taliban fighters hiding in orchards in a major Afghan-Nato offensive that the alliance said killed more than 200 militants in southern Afghanistan. Four Canadian soldiers were killed.

Warplanes today dropped bombs on suspected Taliban fighters hiding in orchards and ground troops fired artillery in a major Afghan-Nato offensive that killed more than 200 militants in southern Afghanistan.

A number of Nato soldiers have been killed in fighting in southern Afghanistan, it was announced today.

Dozens of insurgents have been killed in an operation by Afghan and NATO forces to clear out Taliban fighters from a volatile district near the main southern city of Kandahar, NATO said today.

US-led coalition forces and Afghan police killed 20 suspected Taliban in the latest fighting to hit southern Afghanistan, as NATO today prepared to take command in the insurgency-wracked region.

A Canadian soldier and 10 militants were killed today in fierce fighting near an opium-rich Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, the military said.

More than 80 Taliban militants have been killed in a series of attacks this week by Afghan and coalition forces, the military said.

US ARTILLERY and air strikes killed between 50 and 60 suspected Taliban militants yesterday, the fourth day of a Nato-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, a Nato spokesman said.

Afghanistan’s government today praised the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, saying it was good news for all Muslims.

A US military inquiry has been completed and will be released soon into television footage purportedly showing Americn troops burning the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters.

The US military said today it found “repugnant” and would investigate a television report that claimed US soldiers in Afghanistan burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters and then used the action to taunt other Islamic militants.

Election authorities today said they have dismissed about 50 employees for suspected fraud in last month’s legislative polls, while human rights advocates warned that about half of the winning candidates are suspected to have links to armed groups.

An anti-Taliban warlord defended himself against government accusations and seething villagers today, a day after his cache of ammunition and explosives blew away a chunk of their hamlet in a remote Afghan valley.

NATO and Afghan troops today began an operation to recover the bodies of 104 people killed in the crash of an Afghan airliner, 10 days after it smashed into a mountain in a snowstorm.

A senior Afghan militia commander alleged today that troops from Afghanistan’s US-trained national army beheaded four Taliban fighters to avenge the similar slaying of an Afghan soldier and a military interpreter.

A powerful earthquake devastated villages in the Hindu Kush mountains of northern Afghanistan, where Afghan officials today estimated that 1,800 people had died and thousands more were injured in a region already afflicted by drought, war and food shortages.

At least 600 people have died after an earthquake hit large parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan overnight, according to the UN.